So it begins.
Due to extenuating circumstances, I find myself in the lab past 10 o'clock and hungry for food. Subway is my only real option, and it's causing me to have 'Nam-style flashbacks to what last semester was like. Whatever. Tonight is just one night, although it really does seem like some jerk force is trying its hardest to keep me in this lab. I won't go into my laundry list of technical issues that I compiled tonight, but it's probably more trouble than I've ever had here before. This is just a reminder of what will happen to me if I don't stick to a reasonable schedule this year.
Anyway, the day before class starts, I have an animatic for you. I think the story works, and I hope you do, too. This animatic rules because:
A) It's 1.5 minutes shorter than my last one
B) It will probably be shorter as I clean up timing since I err on the side of length
C) It's a better, simpler story than my last one.
Having said that it will probably be shorter, I actually realize that some sequences might not read as well right now as they would if they were a few seconds longer. I'm hoping that animating will fix that since it's easier to read movement for a short time than it is a still image. If it doesn't, whatever, that's like max 10 seconds added onto this baby. Probably mostly of holds. I'm not going to worry yet.
Also, there are basically no backgrounds unless they were necessary. That sucks. Those won't be difficult to come up with, though.
Why don't you watch it and comment, already?
Untitled from Carder Scholin on Vimeo.
Did you get the Alien 3 reference? I thought it was clever, and I hope you do, too.
...we should really get some speakers back into this senior lab.
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3 comments:
Theif! Brigand!
It is getting there, have no doubts. You really do need to axe that shot, though.
You know which one.
Hi Carder. This is David Fain. Sheila Sofian asked me to take a look at your boards. I've worked in the animation industry for the last 10 years as a writer and animation supervisor. Oh, and in the spirit of full disclosure we're married.
Anyhow, a couple of observations. Right now this feels to me like it's 2 things; a Cowboy Zombie Movie and an animated short about a Cowboy's relationship with his Hat. You can do both but I think one concept has to take the lead.
I think you need to make the initial introduction of the Cowboy a bigger moment and feature the hat more. Before we see the cowboy we should see his hat. The hat rules.
When the shooting starts it seems abrupt. Feels like we need the classic close up on someone's hand and then see the hand start to move before we have guns blazing.
(here's another chance to feature the hat; bad guy and good guy are facing each other, bad guy gets drop on good guy, good guy's HAT allows him to somehow win, cuts out blinding glare etc.
Or, Bad guys shoots off good guy's hat, that's what pisses him off enough to win)
The business of the cowboy dropping the damsel back on the tracks is funny but also feels a bit rushed. The timing might work better if she were to sit on the tracks, dumbfounded for a beat before the train hits her.
This can be a really great building gag; if you stretch out the train (it's a long train, and occasionally we see the cowboy when a flat car passes), then there is a beat when the tracks are empty, then off screen crash.
And O.S. crash should be long too, multiple hits, cowboy wincing as we stay with him before showing the aftermath.
I don't get what is going on in the saloon with the cowboy looking at his hand and dropping it to the bar.
Ok, this is where for me the story falls down for a moment. So all the victims of the train wreck are re-animated by lightning? Not exactly the normal cinematic way of creating zombies. Somehow I'd buy it more if the train just crashed on an ancient native American burial grounds. But that's just me.
Ok another zombie based question. So after the cowboy discovers just shooting the zombie isn't enough, it has to be a head shot, do we get any moment of realization about this fact. I mean, being from the old west I assume he's never seen Night of the Living Dead.
And the whole sheriff thing is out?
I get a little lost after the cowboy trips over the stumpy war vet zombie. He fires his gun and the force of the recoil shoves him o.s.? Why is the gun suddenly so much more powerful?
Gun continuity seems off. When he trips he's holding both guns. Then he has one gun as he steadies one hand with the other. Then he has one empty hand as he reaches for the hat, it's unclear if he's dropped the one gun or still has it. Then after putting the hat on he has both guns again.
I think you are trying to tell us he needs the hat to be a complete or confident cowboy but it seems to me the gun(s) are really what saves his ass. The first time I watched this I though the hat has some object he was going to use as a weapon.
The simplest thing to do is make it clear that without his hat on he can't hit the broadside of a barn. Show him missing or hitting the wrong things completely (opportunity for humor!) When he has a hat on he's Joe sharp shooter. He should make amazing ricochet impossible shots, multiple zombies, in one ear and out the other. And the shot with the townspeople at the end should be amazing but non-fatal.
Well, I'm sure that's more than you wanted to hear. But my take on this coming in completely cold and just watching the animatic a few times.
It's definitely about the man and his hat, more than it is a film about a cowboy and zombies.
I guess I've been reading the film as a sort of meta-commentary on the importance of the white hat in western iconography. That is to say, the hat signifies the hero, and without it he is lost.
The zombies, as is par for the course, are really just a device that allows once to bring what they really want to talk about into sharper relief.
I think David has some good ideas in regards to the train wreck, but lightning works just fine for me as a reanimation agent. I mean, it brought Frankenstein's monster back fom the dead didn't it? He was basically a glorified zombie.
Also: lighting brough Jason Voorhies back from the dead in Friday the Thirteenth Part 6.
I think lightning has established itself as a means of bringing the dead back to life.
But David is right in saying that maybe there needs to be some true contrasting event that allows us to see the significance of the hat. Like him shooting well with it, and poorly without it.
You're just going to have to play up the ineptitude and uncoordinated aspect of the character when he has the hat off.
On the other hand, if you wanted to add some stuff, I think you could totally cut the part with the guy getting eaten in the bar.
The Cowboy could learn all the lessons he needs in zombie killin' while fighting the good fight outside. That's only if you wanted to add something, though.
Honestly, I'm getting really tired right now, and have been drinking tonight, so my words are making less and less sense as I write them.
After watching your last animatic, I really do think your film works well enough to start animating. It could always be better, but you need to graduate, right?
Which at USC means you have to finish your film.
Which means you have to start it.
As much as it kills me to tell you this, you really shouldn't waffle on story too much longer.
I did that, and then come spring semester I had to pretty much forsake all my friends and girlfriend just get the damn thing finished.
I'm still dealing with that choice.
You need to get to work, pace yourself, and get out in one piece.
And make a fun film, of course.
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